A wildlife check in Tahquitz Valley

Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times

Phil Unitt, curator of the department of birds and mammals at the San Diego Natural History Museum, sets up a mist net to catch avian specimens in Tahquitz Valley. Biologists from the museum are conducting a centennial re-survey of the San Jacinto wilderness. The original expedition in 1908 by UC Berkeley's Museum of Vetebrate Zoology established a benchmark for gauging changes in Southern Californias biological landscape.

Phil Unitt, curator of the department of birds and mammals at the San Diego Natural History Museum, sets up a mist net to catch avian specimens in Tahquitz Valley. Biologists from the museum are conducting a centennial re-survey of the San Jacinto wilderness. The original expedition in 1908 by UC Berkeley's Museum of Vetebrate Zoology established a benchmark for gauging changes in Southern Californias biological landscape. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Lori Hargrove, a graduate student, removes a junco caught in a mist net during specimen collection in Tahquitz Valley. Her team will catalog the valley's life forms from streambed to treetop, then compare their findings with those recorded a century earlier by Joseph Grinnell and Harry Swarth of UC Berkeleys Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

Lori Hargrove, a graduate student, removes a junco caught in a mist net during specimen collection in Tahquitz Valley. Her team will catalog the valley's life forms from streambed to treetop, then compare their findings with those recorded a century earlier by Joseph Grinnell and Harry Swarth of UC Berkeleys Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)